Life history strategies

The length of gestation for an elephant is almost two years; the longest of all mammals. For rabbits, gestation lasts about a month. Of course, a single elephant is born with each pregnancy, while for a rabbits, litter size may reach a dozen. You can quickly end up with hundreds of rabbits hopping around without the introduction of a single elephant into the world. Clearly, an elephant has a reproductive strategy that differs significantly from that of a rabbit. While the rabbits’ strategy emphasizes the number of offspring, the reproductive potential of the mother elephant is intensely focused on single offspring. For rabbits it is quantity over quality, while the elephants’ reproductive strategy is defined by the extended nurturance, protection, and care of her offspring.

These differences between elephants and rabbits are carried over across the animals’ lifespans. Elephants mature at a slow pace and live several decades. Rabbits live fast and die young. These differences in reproduction and development are called life history strategies. Elephants are said to have a K-selected or slow strategy, while rabbits have an r-selected or fast strategy.

Another way to view life history strategy, is that the elephants and rabbits are making trade-offs in how bioenergetic (e.g., calories, time) resources are allocated. Rabbits apportion more of their energy to mating, while elephants direct resources toward individual growth, and the elephants’ reproductive effort is focused on parenting.

While humans are by nature K-selected, there are also clear individual differences. Individuals that have a slow life history strategy are more future oriented, have more stable relationships, and invest in future generations. In contrast individuals who have a faster life history strategy are more present-oriented and hedonistic. These differences in life history strategy are dispositional, yet the strategies also vary by a large degree based on environmental contingencies. That is, we all move along a continuum to speed up or slow down our strategy based on our surroundings and experiences.

Life History Strategy, Money, and Bitcoin

The premise of this essay is that money can act as an additional bioenergetic resource (at least symbolically), the allocation of which can reflect an individual’s underlying life history strategy. 

If I drop $100 at a strip club on Saturday night my time and energy is not only directly being allocated toward mating (I am spending time and calories by simply being there), but I am doubling down on that expenditure through my “purchases”. I am being especially r-selected or fast. Alternatively, if I spend my $100 on a Saturday afternoon outing with my daughter, I am directly spending my time and energy on her and our relationship, but I am again doubling down on this allocation by spending the time and energy stored in my money. In this instance I am being especially K-selected or slow. Thus we can see how money is related to life history strategies.

However, in thinking specifically about Bitcoin and life history, I would like to reverse the cause and the effect. For this example I do not want to think about how life history strategy reflects one’s behavior toward money, but how changes in money can impact one’s life history strategy. Specifically, my belief is that inflationary money puts environmental pressure on individuals to adopt a faster life history strategy.

There has been research on several environmental cues that cause individuals to speed up or slow down their life history strategy, and mortality cues may be especially important. If, for example, an individual is receiving environmental cues that life is precarious, then there is little reason for them to invest in growth and development. If they are going to die young, then they might as well live fast. Saving would be foolish.

In a series of studies conducted by me and several colleagues and students, we asked people to imagine that they were told by their physician that they had 5 months, 5 years, or at least 50 years to live. We then measured the participant’s attitudes, beliefs, and expected behaviors. Unsurprisingly, when asked to imagine that their remaining time was short, participants adopted hedonistic, short-term focused, risk-taking, and even criminal attitudes. In sum, as the resource of time was reduced, individuals sped up their life history strategy.

Because money encapsulates time, it seems likely that a reduction in the value of money will have a similar effect. Thus, inflation should cause a shift to a fast or r-selected life history strategy. This should result in observable increases in the same hedonistic, short-term focused, risk-taking, and aggressive behaviors and attitudes seen in our research on manipulated life expectancy. A slow life history strategy with the corresponding saving and future orientation would be foolish.

Alternatively, Bitcoin is non-inflationary, and therefore, it does not produce the same environmental pressures. This is not to say that a Bitcoin standard will necessarily create the opposite pressure and cause all individuals to adopt a slower life history. In fact, you may see little difference in behavior for those who are constituted toward a fast life history strategy. However, as saving is a quintessential slow life trait, and with Bitcoin acting as a non-deteriorating bioenergetic store, those of us with such a disposition may engage in strong hodling behavior.

The Bitcoin community obviously, and for good reason, touts the benefits of Bitcoin for both individuals and societies as a whole. Bitcoin is fungible, but people are not. How differences between people interact with this unique store of energy is worth further consideration.